Death Note news articles

The kanji for Misa Amane should be quite straight-forward. But its not.

Both are reasonably common names in Japan. Enough that none would blink at encountering an individual bearing the surname Amane, though it's not one of the topmost family names. More a marginal, decently sized minority.

Amane is actually more often found as a first name, applicable for males and females alike.

They certainly wouldn't fain surprise at bumping into a Japanese lady or girl named Misa. There's a lot of them about!

All adding up to it being not beyond the realms of possibility for there to be real life females called Misa Amane dotted about Japan.

They must have loved it when Death Note came out! Living for every update, with ten years worth of practiced responses under their belt - tried and tested in readiness to meet all those quips about shinigami eyes, ditzy dorks and Genki Girls, Light Yagami, Death Notes and referring to oneself in the third person.

Are you one? Or do you know Misa Amane in real life?

Do please come and share with us your anecdotes! We're dying to know.

(As you can probably already tell, just by looking at the dates above our heads! Sorry. I'll see myself out.)

I strove hard to create names that seemed real, but could not exist in the real world. ~ Tsugumi Ohba, How to Read, p59

If the family name Amane and given names Misa AND Amane are fairly unremarkable - taken in isolation, beyond the tedium and taint of Death Note mass killing psychos - then what's so complicated about interpreting the meaning of the kanji for Misa Amane?

Everything. Misa Amane's kanji is not like all the rest.

Most frequently used kanji for Misa in Japan:(Translation: Beautiful Assistant)

Meaning Behind Misa Amane's Given Name According to Tsugumi Ohba

Word of God moment now, as the true translation of Death Note Misa's first name isn't mentioned in the manga, anime, movies nor anywhere else.

It's in the manual, of course.

Please open your books to page 60, for in the Beginning the Death Note Creator made the Shinigami Realm and human world, and named all the characters within. Then gave them kanji to spell and shape this new reality.

The Origin of Misa's NameIt was kind of random but I think it was from "kuromisa" [Black Mass]. It must have been based on something.~ Tsugumi Ohba, How to Think, Death Note 13: How to Read, p60

It's actually most blatantly seen in the spelling of Misa's self-referential nickname. The Second Kira always name-checks herself in the third person as Misa-Misa.

As it's rendered in katakana, there's no wriggle room for dissent here. It says Misa Misa and that's that. However, as Ohba already pointed out, 'misa' is the Japanese word for 'mass' in the Catholic liturgy meaning.

Opening up an interesting notion that Misa is really calling herself 'Mass Mass', or 'the blessing and the benediction'. In which the objectifying lack of a pronoun is quite correct.

At a really quite minor stretch, it could be dismissal, as in 'Ite, missa est' (Go, the congregation is dismissed) - the words which close a Catholic mass - and/or its implied action point thereon, 'Go be a missionary; you have your mission'.

And you thought she was just being cute and Genki Girl childlike! (Not yet ruled out.)

Translation of the Amane Kanji for Death Note's Misa Misa

However, it's not just her given name that's attached to strange kanji and multi-faceted katakana.

Misa's family name is equally like no kanji that's ever been associated with Amane prior to Death Note. Nor can it be translated the same.

The usual kanji for Amane as a surname can be multiple and quite diverse, but within a certain theme of numinous incantations and the aural divine, plus pathetic fallacy. The two most common Amane kanji are:

天音 meaning Heavenly Sound

雨音 meaning The Sound of Rain

For Misa Amane's family name the kanji is thus, and quite unlike the others:

弥

This rare usage of Amane kanji means something like 'increasingly' or 'more and more'. Though where Tsugumi Ohba's mind was there, who can tell? He never explained it, but left it to us.

Posted as Part of

There's always been something a little off about events in the Yellow Box Warehouse, wherein was staged Death Note's climactic scenes.

It's all good drama nontheless. We get Gevanni's sleight of hand with Death Notes performed like a stage magician's prestige; that breath-taking instant of Light's confession; the chaos and the shooting; a divine madman's soliloquy on the subject of justice; and Near's finest hour in the coldest put-down to ever deaden a burgeoning reality.

Not to mention the revelation of Mell0's final heroism, as martyr to the cause (inadvertently taking Matt with him), being more meaningful than hitherto suspected; and the crawling disbelief of Light, as the Kira veneer is stripped from him and we're all reminded that Ryuk was only ever here for the lulz.

Then death - a flashing ghost of glowing L, if this is the anime over manga - and everyone leaves to resume normality in a world, where the given order has long since been shaken to the core. Global society now quickly recovering with a haste almost indecent enough to prove Kira right after all.

And everyone lived happily ever after.

So - Run it by Us Again - How Did Death Note End?! I Think We Missed a Bit...

Except they didn't. Do you know a single Death Note fan who hasn't at least questioned the unfolding narrative in that scene?

Attempting to follow Near's proof and logic from confrontation to conclusion; not only of the moment, but the whole story supposedly unravelling in evidence that leads directly to Light's undignified demise.

I think everyone read or watched it again at least twice. I've lost count of forum posts with each new fandom victim meandering to say, 'Erm, sorry, but I don't quite get this.'

Thus follows the specific point where they tripped down yawning the plot-holes, now opening up like a minefield across the scene: What did Mello do again? How did Near know x, y, z? Is he psychic or something? And what the sweet proverbial was up with Mikami's bizarreness in behaviour generally and facial expressions definitely?

Everyone too busy worrying that they were the only one left confused to even touch upon the gore of that arterial blood-burst, so gloried in the anime as Mikami's dramatic turn at self-harm.

You know what I mean. We've all been there. Several detailed readings or stop-contemplate-start viewings on, some of us can even convince ourselves that the denunciation is sequential; all points supported with no great leaps of faith; and it all makes sense. Otherwise we've sat though 37 episodes/108 chapters of story that doesn't deliver at the final crescendo of all that build-up. Which can't be true, when the tale is widely deemed to be a - perhaps the - classic of the genre; wildly, unabashedly and unceasingly popular on a global scale.

So the doubt creeps in that it's us instead. We weren't genius enough to fully 'get' it. It's enough to pretend we did, then run with the points that were discerned and fitted perfectly in place.

The rest is simply fan-fiction.

Death Note Doesn't End at the Yellow Box

The problem is our natural propensity to think of Death Note as Light's story. It's not. It's Ryuk's. (Though Tarot Mikami is coming up shortly with an intriguing perspective on the manga also being Matsuda's tale.) Nevertheless when the epic build up breaks upon Kira's death, and subsequent dissembling into nothingness, it can seem like we went with him.

What follows is way too often dismissed as superlative; an epilogue to bring us all back down to Earth. While mischievously inserting doubt over whether Light really lost, when Kira worshippers still ritually congregate and believe.

But this, not Kira's Curtain, was what it was all leading up to. Tsugumi Ohba himself said, in How to Read - Death Note 13, that the vision of these scenes in Finis were what caused the spark of inspiration to flow through the rest of the Death Note narrative. All else he wrote was working back from this, no tacked on arcs post-L, nor leaping into the grave with Light. For all their game-changing grandeur, they were ultimately merely markers upon the narrative, pointing beyond themselves to now.

Pinging upon the sacred number of Defilements in Buddhism, Finis is chapter 108. It always would be. Ohba decided that one early on, and left the one-shot manga to follow unnumbered so not to alter the fact that Death Note has exactly 108 chapters. You can count them on your Mala Beads, if you want.

So what great facet is revealed to us here? That Light found divinity in the end? That the world without him simply returns to previous form: crime rate rising to pre-Kira levels; all else flowing back as if the last seven years had been erased, with even the same people in the streets, older, yet doing exactly the same things.

Light's endeavours, and even erstwhile existence, rendered meaningless in minute, subtle ways. Like the return of Yamamoto, last seen in cameo within the earliest Death Note chapters as Light Yagami's friend; now greeting Matsuda as his BFF, and off they go to the pub. Light's own mother never learning the truth of his loss. Told lies to cover up the reality as seen and shaped by her son. His place in the world, philosophy, perspective and pursuits all rendered Mu as his Kira ridden soul. All else come full circle and moved on like he was never there.

Nor is this the point of Finis. It just the fine detail in the background driving certain messages home; if we're charitable a coda of candles in the wind.

Matsuda's Theory is Not a Coda; It's the Final Piece in the Jigsaw Puzzle

It's in the foreground that the big reveal is happening, hidden in plain sight through the chattering of a 'Fool' and already dismissed by Ide before we even make the mountain top.

Most readers agreeing, because we're too distracted by Light and all the lovely Easter eggs waving from the scenery. Plus we already feel like idiots for not quite 'getting' the Near exposee of Light in the Yellow Box Warehouse, and we're damned if we're going to be drawn into another long explanation posited by a traumatized idiot.

Matsuda's always been so easy to dismiss. Particularly now, when we recently saw his gullibility writ large upon that shattering previous scene. His shock in the great Kira reveal caused such a meltdown that he's probably suffering PTSD or something now. Racked with guilt over Soichiro and so many dead; still obviously wrestling with the shock of knowing a third of his life was lived as a lie; his loyalty disabused in the most belittling, gut-wrenching way.

We don't need the ghost of L to whisper, 'Shut up, Matsuda! You idiot!' Because we're hardly listening anyway. It's just background noise finally shut down by Ide, tacitly approved by all lost in mourning for our mass murdering megalomaniac and his warped sense of justice.

Now echoed by Ide himself, as he decrees Kira's crimes terrible enough to warrant his summary execution - with an illegally wielded firearm (Matsuda was technically off-duty) and a Death God's intervention, in an out of the way warehouse, without charge, nor trial, judge and jury, and no right of appeal before instant death. Based upon evidence constructed from a self-confessed SPK sting, plus Near sounding so sure as he blithely divulged bits of the known coupled with conjecture, like it was the only way things could have played out.

His speech, on behalf of the prosecution in this kangaroo court condemnation of Kira, seemed utterly watertight. Yet Near was still able to reorder his version of events, to encompass the implications of Mello's intent in Takada's abduction, as Hal Lidner testified her impression of the same rather late in the day. It was an interpretation which cast a different hue upon the timeline, but delivered in confidence nontheless and received likewise from all who heard. Just as they'd accepted the prior telling too.

Maybe because they, like those bearing witness from our ringside seats in the fourth wall, couldn't truly follow it at the time.

But Near is a genius, so it must be true; and who cares why or how a Mafia man died? While Matt only turned up twelve panels ago, if he'd lived he probably wouldn't have amounted to much. We hardly knew him, so let him go - collateral damage in a war against a man too rotten to live in this world of safety and security, and justice.

Around this time in proceedings, it's normally behoven for babes or Fools to call out to say that the Emperor wears no clothes; or that in this Orwellian warehouse scenario it's getting difficult to call the pigs from the humans, humans from the pigs, nor tell the rationale of Kira from those arrayed extra-judicially against him.

Unfortunately the Fool Matsuda was in meltdown at the time, being dragged away by his friends; while the only child present was made judge and chief prosecutor at the same time. Needless to say, he won the day. Then watched Light Yagami die as a result; howling, without advocacy, nor anyone to ask whether Light was even sane enough at this point to understand what was happening to him. Or take the opportunity to arrest Kira, hold him safe, and learn what he knew about the Afterlife and eternity, and all those other things that philosophers, priests and ordinary people have pondered to distraction over every millennia of human sentience.

Instead all watched too, accepting the sense of prevailing 'rightness' in the air around Near. Who watched Kira die and kept the Death Notes.

Which was the actual point of the Yellow Box confrontation - to knock out the opposition and clear the decks ready to quietly seize power, when no-one else was looking. At least it is, if we're running with the gut instinct of Matsuda and some really quite compelling end game theories for Near in Death Note.

No Black and White in Light and Near - Matsuda Muses Upon Morality Post-Kira

One year to the day after the death of Light Yagami, Touta Matsuda still isn't convinced that they were on the right 'side' in the end. He watches society sink back from fear of Kira into a resurgence of the usual mix of humanity for good or ill living as they will. With the inevitable wave of criminal behaviour surfing in ever higher numbers in their midst, Matsuda's depression deepens.

For those not actually targeted by Kira, these streets had been safer under his horrific regime.

It's an unsettling notion that maybe, after all, they did crucify their Saviour. Yet sharing his concerns with Ide elicits a most telling reply:

Kira was wrong. Because that's what they DECIDED by consensus was the case. Kira has to be wrong, or else there was no purpose attached to the sacrifice of those serving on the anti-Kira Task Force, nor who lost their lives in other parties in his opposition.

Condemn Light Yagami's worldview, and his prospective Godhood with it, and survivors like Matsuda, Ide, Aizawa, Mogi and Near with his group all become war heroes. Able to feel pride in their past endeavours and self-respect for themselves. Their fallen - Soichiro, Ukita, L, Watari, Raye Penbar, Mello, Matt et al - become martyrs in a noble cause. The Glorious Dead of cenotaphs, remembered with honour and distinction.

Support Kira in memory and all that fails. Each become betrayers, of a friend and comrade, perhaps of a Messiah. Maybe even the destroyers of humanity itself; thieves of a genuine Utopian dream.

It was decided Kira was not right, because otherwise they wouldn't be able to grasp what they were fighting for in that bitter, seven year war. And madness beckons that way.

There's another point unsettling Matsuda, prickling at his conscience - just because they all decided (at the time and since) to stand against Light Yagami, why should that make them automatically pro-Near?

It's like there's only two sides about which to align oneself, and if one is demonstrably evil/insane/wrong, then the other by default is good/reasonable/right.

The entire Task Force appears to view Near as L's true successor, completely, absolutely and with all due trust. Their resources are placed at the Wammy boy's command.

Yet to Matsuda's mind, Near never earned that. Moreover, there are a string of worrisome - potentially catastrophic - concerns which were never fully answered. They could well be swapping one egotistical and manipulative serial killer for another; making the same mistakes all over again. Unfortunately no-one appears ready nor willing to hear him out.

Does Tota Matsuda's Theory Reveal Death Note Truths as its Grand Manga Finale?

For all that its generally ignored, or blatantly rejected within the panels of the Death Note manga, Matsuda's theory isn't that off the wall. It's nestling comfortably in the realms of actual possibility.

Whilst recalling that this was the chapter planned from the start - following one that was almost called Black Curtain (a Japanese euphemism for someone orchestrating events behind the scenes) - and that Tsugumi Ohba blatantly said that 'Near cheats', let's recap. These were the points of plot that Touta Matsuda was pondering:

Near Played Mello like a Puppet

Before indulging in speculation about this part of Matsuda's Theory re Mello, please read what Death Note News reader Dominic Miller has to comment below. He has effectively disproved its veracity, as Near didn't have Mikami's notebook in time for this sequence of events to be feasible.

Was Near conveying misinformation to Mello via Hal Lidner, psychologically edging his foster brother into acting just as Near willed. A pawn in his game after all.

Alternatively, as alumni of the same orphanage, Near might be expected to know Mello's real name, while also having a good mental picture of his face. Mello's move certainly benefited Near, while obviously having dire consequences for Mello himself.

Did Near write the name of his Wammy rival into the notebook captured from Mikami?

Thus eliminating a challenger to his own glory right on the eve of Near's win over Kira, whilst also taking out the dangerous Takada, setting up Mikami, providing evidence that Light is Kira to throw into play AND testing possible conjecture of Near's own in the validity of his real/fake Death Note.

Five strikes in one foul swoop, if this one was true and Near really did manipulate Mello into his own martyrdom. (With an option on Matt too. Near had the means and that eliminated the next in line after Mello, once the second's heart was broken and finally, decisively he could be burned out of this deadly game of L's Succession.)

If Mello's abduction of Takada was orchestrated by Near via a Death Note, it would explain some of the more bizarre aspects and imagery surrounding Mello at this time.

For a start, the moment of possession would have come when Hal and Mello spoke on the line. She passes on Near's specific message, "Soon he'll bring things to a conclusion directly." And Mello answers, "He's going to make him write our names in the notebook directly." Just as Hal said, he knew.

The blond Wammy teen sits on a darkened throne, forearms draped across his thighs and hands dangling; head bowed listlessly beneath a cascading curtain of hair. Like a puppet awaiting his strings to be pulled; on a floor decked as a chessboard; surrounded by mannequins, aping the debris from a battle-field; and a white dust-cover behind him draped as an awaiting winding sheet or shroud.

If Mello's actions from now on are controlled by his puppet-master Near, then it accounts for his uncharacteristic lapse in judgement in the back of the truck. When Takada - known to use the Death Note and likely to have a snippet of it upon her person - is allowed to retain her underwear, and is even afforded a blanket for the sake of decency.

All the privacy she needed to extract the weapon to kill Mihael Keehl on Near's behalf. Just as planned.

Near Controlled and Killed Mikami

Near was in possession of Teru Mikami's name, facial image and a Death Note prior to the meeting in the Yellow Box warehouse. Did he write Mikami's name in there, directing the lawyer's actions in the days leading up to, during and after their denunciation of Kira?

Mikami died mysteriously in prison ten days after the Yellow Box confrontation. His passing went without remark by those who should have been asking questions concerning its convenience in tying up loose ends for all on the Kira case. Did Near kill Mikami by writing the fatality into a Death Note?

I'm not going to tackle this key aspect of Matsuda's theory about Near in the Death Note ending, because quite frankly Casuistor and Teruzuki have already done and completely owned that. Convinced me anyway.

All ur Death Notes Belong 2 Near

Why was Near sole allowed custody of all shinigami notebooks remaining in the human world?

Near stated that Ryuk confirmed two false rules, with one of them being the burning of a Death God's notebook will causally kill its destroyer. Near then burned all of his accumulated Death Notes, in order to keep them from being used by any future Kira pretender.

However, no-one else was present for that conversation with the shinigami. Though they all heard it heralded in discussion within the Yellow Box Warehouse.

Moreover, nor did anyone witness Near's Bonfire of the Death Notes. Therefore how can anyone be so sure that he hasn't got them still?

If Near possesses just one Death God's notebook, then he's currently an extremely powerful force to be reckoned with upon the world stage. He's had ample opportunity to assess its possibilities and to know its limitations. He's had Light, Misa, Mikami, Mello and a host of others test it out for him.

He has already used it to control the actions of others, supposing that Matsuda's theory is correct; and has killed several times for personal gain and achievement by cheating.

Nobody knows that he has it. He's not orchestrating a crusade as Light attempted to do. He's just got access to a remarkable level of personal power and influence, the eternal company of a Death God to discuss what's previously not been met in his philosophy.

Near's under the radar because nobody thought to check that he really did incinerate those books. A strange oversight to be made by police officers entrenched for years on this case.

Why is Near Staging a Reunion on the First Anniversary of Kira's Death?

Now, on the anniversary of that traumatic confrontation with Kira, why is Near:

chasing a drugs cartel into the very same location;

preparing to confront them actually in the Yellow Box Warehouse;

and calling upon those there last time to join him in situ once again?

Ide initially sees nothing strange in this. Aizawa agreed to send the staff. No immediate word from Mogi, though the assumption is compliance.

Only Matsuda wonders what game the Wammy boy is playing now. Though in this, at least, he does appear to persuade Ide that something strange is going on - a connection to what went before; what was previously arranged.

However, we never do find out. Matsuda manages to convince Ide to at least intimidate some parts of his theory have been heard, and taken seriously. For a moment, the older man steps into Touta Matsuda's reality and that kind of affirmation was all the young officer needed for comfort in his unsolvable, unsettling theorizing.

A touch of grace and we see the old Fool back. Matsuda grinning with a friend, too busy chatting, making plans to visit a bar tonight, to properly hear a word Near has to say anymore. The final word in Death Note - before the ritual coda of Kira cultists - is Near's admonishment to Matsuda, "Listen carefully!"

Maybe because Near knows that he might need Matsuda one day to stop him too, if only the Fool would pay attention. But for now he's distracted, laughing and moved on, Near got away with killing for personal gain. But surely that's understandable? Just ask Kira.

Posted as Part of

So the funny thing about Japanese is that it uses three different systems of writing: kanji, hiragana, and katakana.

Kanji was borrowed from China a long time ago and applied to Japanese words (although the sounds it represented had to be tweaked along the way) and is now used in combination with hiragana for native Japanese words. Since kanji had to be tweaked and adapted for convenient use, several different readings (or pronunciations) exist for each one.

Japanese names in modern times are typically written in kanji, though there are exceptions. Light’s name is written using these kanji: 夜神月 (ya gami raito).

Each of the kanji in his name have different possible pronunciations and common meanings, with “Yagami” using the kanji for “night” and “god”, and “Raito” using “moon/month”.

Interestingly there are no readings for 月 that sound anything like “raito”. The existing readings are “tsuki” (moon) and “getsu/gatsu” (month).

Kira worshippers and moon at theend of Death Note

So why is a kanji, that is usually read as “tsuki” on its own, pronounced with a very English sounding “raito”, or “Light”? Simple answer: because Ohba-sensei told us that’s how it’s to be pronounced.

Complex answer: a naming phenomenon exists in Japan, utilising kanji that looks cool, in order to write names that would typically be written a different, more common way.

It is not so strange for parents to want their children to have unique names, nor for manga authors to name their characters using these conventions. It enables them to give their main characters names that are not used in other manga. Ohba-sensei chose the kanji that means moon to represent a new meaning of “light”, stretching the meaning of the original just enough to still be understood.

Why Light Continues to be Called Tsuki Yagami or Raito Yagami by Fans Today

This explains why Light Yagami's name is sometimes read as Tsuki Yagami and/or Raito Yagami too. After all, we're being asked to render a common word in kanji in an uncommon way.

Then - back when Death Note was first released - and now - with each new person picking up the tale - every Japanese reader would assume that Ohba-sensei intended his protagonist to be called Yagami Tsuki. They have no reason not to, until Light himself explains in the manga how to pronounce his name. That doesn't happen until, I believe, chapter twelve.

During his encounter with Naomi Misora, Light goes to great lengths to spell out precisely how his kanji is meant to be read. It seems a little strange in context; too long-winded an explanation over a simple name pronunciation. Particularly in conversation with a lady whom Light is about to kill, concerning kanji that she can't even see written down.

But this was the way that Ohba-sensei got to tell his manga's readers too how to say his main character's name. En masse the whole fledging Death Note fandom suddenly had to teach themselves not to say Yagami Tsuki (or Yagami Raito) as assumed, but the now familiar Yagami Light. Some still got it wrong - misunderstanding the correction as being from Tsuki to Raito - like in the panels above, produced by an unofficial early translator of Death Note manga chapters into English.

All proving how unusual it is for a Japanese schoolboy to be called Light, spelled as tsuki kanji and pronounced raito. So uncommon and strange that some readers still opt for what the kanji is more obviously telling them, hence all three names continue to be prevalent throughout the fandom and even the rarest of them - Tsuki Yagami - may still be heard.

It may be that Ohba-sensei waited so long before (literally) spelling out how he wanted Light's name to be known, because the author hadn't quite decided the issue for himself.

Not until Death Note 13: How to Read was more insight divulged on the subject. In the interview with Tsugumi Ohba, it's stated that he struggled with Light's name, unable to settle upon the right one. Then his editor suggested 'Yagami' and it sparked enough inspiration in the writer that he went on a quest to find the kanji.

When I looked through the Japanese name registry, I found the Kanji for 'star' and 'light'. At first, I wasn't too concerned about it. But the final scene in the manga gave his name deeper significance. I liked that.- Tsugumi Ohba, Death Note author, How to Read: Death Note 13, p 61.

Reading between the lines, it's quite possible to imagine Ohba-sensei merely enjoying the duality of 'star', 'moon' and 'light' inherent in his protagonist's Kanji. Then, as the story grew and the characterisation became more fixed, future scenes might flash eradescent through a storyteller's mind. As yet unformed, but filling him with glee enough to shift away from that lack of concern into a sudden conviction that it should be Light, not Raito, nor Tsuki, that readers saw in that Kanji.

The writer had found the right name for Death Note's central character. Now he just needed the manga reading public to switch tracks with him, and that last scene would be beautifully full of symbolism.

Yet he kept the moon there too - in the first pages and penultimate ones too, as evidenced by the twin images shown at the top of this article; in situ bookmarking hundreds of pages across 108 chapters. The Yagami Tsuki people were able to feel validated in stubbornly retaining that original presumed moniker for their character.

But then turn the page and that light upon the worshipper's face could just as easily be cast from a star. At least metaphorically, with the star of hope. There's a nod to the editor's name registry book and the dual meaning of the star-light Kanji found inside. The moment when Ohba-sensei could breathe life into his creation; for no persona lives on the page, until its name is known.

And again, turn a page to the manga's final word - a simple candle and its glow burning bright. No celestial being this, nothing so divine. Just Light, casting shadows, and the nothingness beyond. Great final scene. Good name.

Tsuki? Moon glow in the background; seemingly stars bright in their hands

Turning away from stars and the moon to a candle's small 'light' - this is Kira-sama

Amaryllis's analysis of why Light Yagami may be called Tsuki Yagami by some fandom members, was posted as part of Death Note Month of Kira.

Running throughout February 2016, anyone may contribute Kira related content for this event. That includes you, and your mate.

To find out more about it, visit Death Note Month of... Home; to send in articles, art, recipes, queries, fan-fiction, tutorials, opinion pieces or any other wonders you're moved to share, please visit our sparkly new Month of... Reader Submission Page.

Cosplayers, you now have your very own Death Notecostumers' questionnaire, as another option for inclusion in the Month of... focus. Other groups, you'll get one soon, if you're an artist, writer and - if there's demand enough for it - role-player. Nudge us to request more community surveys for any other category of Death Note fan expression not yet counted.

Just a reminder about a Death Note event on Tumblr, which began yesterday and continues over the Christmas period to finish on December 26th 2015.

Death Note Ladies Appreciation Weeks looks to redress the balance in focus given to Death Note's women and girl characters. Let's face it, the fandom really does relish its male personae over the female cohort. Yet there are some extremely kick-ass and/or fascinating ladies in this universe. Explore their stories in canon pics; elaborate upon them in fan-fiction and fan-art; discover that they even exist, if you blinked and missed their cameo.

This is the second year running for the Tumblr event for Death Note fans. Anyone can join in. You just tag your update with #dn ladies appreciation and post away, preferably on the day scheduled for your yuri pairing and/or each individual female Death Note character's bespoke date:

For more details, check out our original head's up about the event; where you'll also find a slightly easier collage of Death Note women to test your knowledge of characters in the Death Note universe. For answers to the much more difficult one posted at the top here, see below:

And if you're looking for inspiration and/or something to post on each day, then our sidebar has all of these ladies listed under Death Note News Categories - archives full of things about them! Feel free to post links to what you will.